Whatcha watchin'?

JamesBannon · Post by **JamesBannon** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 10:20 pm

On TV, Youtube or wherever about any topic. I'll start.

xxxHolic Anime

It's available, as a fan sub, Here. The fan sub is pretty good. (I'd advise using an ad blocker on this site, as the ads can be really annoying.)

It's a CLAMP series, so expect some mind screw. The anime itself is quite good, though it can appear a bit fragmented due to the episode ordering.

Tubby · Post by **Tubby** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 10:49 pm

Watched the first four seasons of 'The Wonder Years' on disc late 2016 - early 2017. Would like to buy the remaining seasons. But I want to acquire and watch them in chronological order, and the sticking point is season 5 is missing an episode due to lack of permission for that episode's use of some song. If I hold off long enough, maybe there will be a complete season 5 I can purchase. But jeez, it could be years from now.

Politesse · Post by **Politesse** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 11:04 pm

I just finished watching Yuri on Ice, which the internet has been obsessing over but which I found reasonably worthy of the hype. Not high art or anything, but if you like figure skating (I do) and get tired of heterodominance in the quirky sports romance genre, you will like this.

Now I am catching up on Doctor Who, I'm a few seasons behind. It's okay, but I really miss Matt Smith and the writing seems to have gone downhill since he left, not the actor's fault of course. Too much angst, too many recycled plots. I get annoyed that they have thrown all manner of crap at Clara, yet her character never seems to change or grow or indeed remember anything that happened in the preceding episodes. And tone-wise, I was never a fan of dark and edgy for its own sake. I understand that both actor and show runner are up for replacement soon, so hopefully some life will be breathed back into the franchise.

My latest Youtube obsession has been ContraPoints, whose views on social and political issues I find comfortingly similar to my own. Who needs intellectual diversity anyhow?

Also, a rather nice, if aged, tv series on African history by Basil Davidson.

praxis · Post by **praxis** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 11:11 pm

I'm looking forward to the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

I recently watched The Hateful Eight.

praxis · Post by **praxis** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 11:12 pm

I'm looking forward to the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

I recently watched The Hateful Eight.

I also enjoyed The Black Mirror.

ETA: Sorry about the double post

MattShizzle · Post by **MattShizzle** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 11:16 pm

[quote=""Tubby""]Watched the first four seasons of 'The Wonder Years' on disc late 2016 - early 2017. Would like to buy the remaining seasons. But I want to acquire and watch them in chronological order, and the sticking point is season 5 is missing an episode due to lack of permission for that episode's use of some song. If I hold off long enough, maybe there will be a complete season 5 I can purchase. But jeez, it could be years from now.[/quote]

Arr? - Just for that episode. Still, how hard would it have been to just take the song out rather than leave out the entire episode?

Old Woman in Purple · Post by **Old Woman in Purple** » Sun Apr 02, 2017 3:07 am

Yeah, yeah, I know I won't win any intellectual awards, so don't give me any grief

.... but Santa brought me the complete runs of CSI (the original Las Vegas series), and CSI:NY on DVD for xmas.

I've been having a blast binge-watching them all, and getting tons of my quilting projects done in the process.

CSI:Miami is still on my wish-list.

I also enjoy Bones, Criminal Minds, and Elementary, for quilt-project entertainment.

Hermit · Post by **Hermit** » Sun Apr 02, 2017 3:24 am

Debbie Does Bowen

Tubby · Post by **Tubby** » Sun Apr 02, 2017 3:25 am

[quote=""MattShizzle""]Arr? - Just for that episode. Still, how hard would it have been to just take the song out rather than leave out the entire episode?[/quote]

My thought as well. They could have substituted some other song and preceded the episode with a 4-second note on the screen about the modification they had to make.

JamesBannon · Post by **JamesBannon** » Sun Apr 02, 2017 11:21 pm

(View video on YouTube)

dancer_rnb · Post by **dancer_rnb** » Mon Apr 03, 2017 5:38 am

Hallo Hallo is on Netflix.

JamesBannon · Post by **JamesBannon** » Mon Apr 03, 2017 7:44 am

(View video on YouTube)

Probably my favourite author, Poe has a wonderful way of inciting terror without all the gore; beautifully done by the late, great Vincent Price.

JamesBannon · Post by **JamesBannon** » Tue Apr 04, 2017 10:42 am

(View video on YouTube)

The All Blacks are my favourite side. Currently, they are the best in the world, and by some margin. Surprisingly, Scotland are currently fifth, though the gap between them and the top four (New Zealand, England, Ireland & Australia) is rather wide.

Hermit · Post by **Hermit** » Tue Apr 04, 2017 12:42 pm

[quote=""JamesBannon""]

(View video on YouTube)

Scotland are currently fifth, though the gap between them and the top four (New Zealand, England, Ireland & Australia) is rather wide.[/quote]
Going by test results the ladder is South Africa (the Allblacks won 59% of them), Australia (69), France (77), England (80) and Wales (90). Ireland and Scotland are level pegging at 93%, but I place Ireland ahead because it won one test and drew another out of 30 while Scotland managed two draws and no wins out of 30.

I know there's much more to international Rugby than tests, and you refer to recent form, but I like razzing the fans of cross-country mud-wrestling. Being the most skilful team at colliding with the opposition at maximum speed and force is not the most desirable of all possible achievements. At least not to me. Nevertheless, I get goosebumps every single time the Allblacks do the Haka.

I managed to catch up again with The Triple Echo at long last and was as impressed with it last week as I was in 1972. The fact that Glenda Jackson and Oliver Reed filled two of the three lead roles did much for quality assurance. The film is regarded as a "cult movie". In terms of box office takings, I suppose it is. In any other, certainly not.

JamesBannon · Post by **JamesBannon** » Tue Apr 04, 2017 2:01 pm

Trust me, no-one was more surprised than me when I found Scotland lying fifth in the table. They even have a decent chance of being a seeded team in the next world cup, provided their form continues. On the other hand, South Africa have had a disastrous run, but I expect them to bounce back at some stage, if they can sort out their selection policy.

Ozymandias · Post by **Ozymandias** » Tue Apr 04, 2017 2:09 pm

I have been watching Iron Fist on Netflix recently, but it is a bit crap. There doesn't seem much good stuff on at the moment.

JamesBannon · Post by **JamesBannon** » Wed Apr 05, 2017 7:39 pm

Gosick

Featuring an adorable, if rather bossy, heroine as the Sherlock.

A sub is available Here. (Again, I'd recommend using an ad blocker.)

See

(View video on YouTube) for a review. I was surprised at Arcadia's review here, as I think the series is rather good. View it is a romance between Victorique and Kujo, and you'll see what I mean. The only annoyance is Kujo shouting Victorique's name all the time. This seems to be a standard trope in many romance anime, and it can get rather annoying.

Samnell · Post by **Samnell** » Wed Apr 05, 2017 8:19 pm

[quote=""Politesse""]I just finished watching Yuri on Ice, which the internet has been obsessing over but which I found reasonably worthy of the hype. Not high art or anything, but if you like figure skating (I do) and get tired of heterodominance in the quirky sports romance genre, you will like this. [/quote]

I've been stuck about halfway through that since November. Love the crap out of it but got busy with other things and haven't been back. You may like Free!, which is about a boy's swim team and similarly homoerotic, though kept more to subtext. The studio knew what they were doing too because the closing credits have the main cast dancing in a gay bar. A friend and I thought it was hilariously gay. There's a second season which I understand falls more into character drama. That didn't sound promising to me so I dropped it.

[quote=""Politesse""]Now I am catching up on Doctor Who, I'm a few seasons behind. It's okay, but I really miss Matt Smith and the writing seems to have gone downhill since he left, not the actor's fault of course. Too much angst, too many recycled plots. I get annoyed that they have thrown all manner of crap at Clara, yet her character never seems to change or grow or indeed remember anything that happened in the preceding episodes. And tone-wise, I was never a fan of dark and edgy for its own sake. I understand that both actor and show runner are up for replacement soon, so hopefully some life will be breathed back into the franchise. [/quote]

That's where I gave up on Who. I didn't mind Clara for the first season or so when she was with Matt Smith, but her plot clearly ended and she was just kept on and on and on. Read at the time that the actor was constantly on the fence about whether or not she was leaving the show, so they ended up writing her a half-dozen exits she went back on. By the time she's teaching school and has a bland boyfriend, I outright loathed her.

Haven't been watching much consistently myself in a few years now. About the closest things at present is Riverdale, which I love as a trashy comedy soap that knows its a trashy comedy soap. It's had a couple of serious missteps, but overall it's decent.

I'm about two weeks behind. Trying to catch up with Legion, which is doing a fairly good portrayal of some mental health issues. Our Hero has superpowers, but it also looks like he's just not quite well. That's probably due to plot magic, but he's been treated sensitively to date rather than as a bundle of symptoms in lieu of characterization.

Was keeping up with the DC TV shows, but about two years ago I realized that everything I liked about Arrow was being purged from the show in favor of a boring shitfest and I detested the lead character. The show I actually wanted was Flash, which I like quite a lot but fell off from early this season and haven't been back yet. This was right about early November, coincidentally. Never quite got into Legends of Tomorrow.

Marvel's shows on Netflix were pretty good up through Luke Cage, which I wanted desperately to like but lost me with a flat villain. Currently working through Iron Fist at about an ep a night. I don't think it's nearly as bad as people say, but it's absolutely right that Iron Fist should have either been changed to an Asian character or just not used at all. Seventies-era mighty whitey crap should have stayed in the Seventies. (There's sort of the same issue with Dr. Strange, but Strange's powers aren't usually presented as specifically Asian the way Iron Fist's are. He's 90% fantasy pulp magic and 10% Lovecraft.) The fight scenes are probably hurt a little by the fact that he doesn't use a mask, so it's got to be him in them and Jones is basically a fit guy in his twenties rather than a skilled physical performer. No amount of beautiful Loras Tyrell fixes the problem. They ought to have cast him as a grown up Doug Ramsey or something, but Sony has those rights and I'm the only person who would watch a Doug Ramsey show.

In the vein of entertaining trash, I watched a couple episodes of Lucha Underground last week. May watch more. It was presented to me as a pro wrestling show for people who aren't big fans of the genre. The thing's shot as a sort of grim, gritty drama with some supernatural undertones (which I understand get stronger) but it's intentionally a comedy too. My main gripe is that the fights tend to drag out. I know they can't really edit them and that the performers are hard at work planning what's to happen next, but it still feels like they go on a few minutes too long.

DMB · Post by **DMB** » Thu Apr 06, 2017 9:58 am

I just watched a DVD of Fantastic Beasts and where to find them. I think Rowling is overdoing the Harry Potter universe. The HP saga had a basic heroic story and the magic was simply the surroundings, but Fantastic Beasts was all about the magic (=CGI) with almost no story. Newt Scamander was a nice character well played by Eddie Redmayne, but that was really it. Most of the animals weren't really believable and there was too much repetition of the same effects -- destroy a building and then repair it by running the whole thing backwards. The Barebones family was quite interesting but it didn't get enough development, despite good acting from Samantha Morton and Ezra Miller. The film could have had a good story if it had concentrated on Scamander versus Barebones.

I gather that Rowling is planning another four films to follow on. Oh dear!

Tubby · Post by **Tubby** » Thu Apr 06, 2017 5:02 pm

The fellows on 'American Pickers' yesterday bought a 1950s Philco television set with an amazingly thin CRT for that era. I didn't know there was such a thing.

I've pulled away from 'Storage Wars' because the producers are supposedly salting the lockers, leaving the "reality" aspect of the show in the dust.

Tubby · Post by **Tubby** » Fri Apr 07, 2017 4:22 am

[quote=""Samnell""] A friend and I thought it was hilariously gay. [/quote]

How much shock value was there in Barry Manilow's disclosure, if you don't mind saying?

Samnell · Post by **Samnell** » Fri Apr 07, 2017 2:07 pm

[quote=""Tubby""]

Samnell;668412 wrote: A friend and I thought it was hilariously gay.

How much shock value was there in Barry Manilow's disclosure, if you don't mind saying?[/QUOTE]

I've basically never given Manilow much thought, sexuality or otherwise. So: good for him.

Ozymandias · Post by **Ozymandias** » Fri Apr 07, 2017 3:38 pm

It is often hard to tell with celebrities since they are by necessity of a more flamboyant nature. But in his case I think I just assumed he was gay anyway.

Tubby · Post by **Tubby** » Sun Apr 09, 2017 3:08 am

CNN weekends runs an hour slot for Anthony Bourdain's world travels. I haven't seen most of them, but I watched part of today's. He was in Vietnam, taking a tour boat ride in a bay and eating the local restaurant food. His tablemate was a former US president, their sleeves rolled up at one table and the local Vietnamese patrons at other tables.

I didn't hear the "C" words (Communism/Capitalism) brought up in the part I saw. Bourdain says the people show no animosity toward Americans, and the war there has become "an abstraction," despite museums and displays portraying Americans as aggressive invaders. I noticed a Circle K convenience store and a KFC fast food restaurant on one street. A "bar girl" was wearing a tight shimmery dress that would not have passed inspection by a dedicated Maoist decades back, for sure.

JamesBannon · Post by **JamesBannon** » Thu Apr 13, 2017 12:04 pm

Laugh a minute

Warning, NSFW and it's offensive!

(View video on YouTube)